


Zorro

by kissoffools



Category: High School Musical (Movies)
Genre: College, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Halloween, M/M, Post-Canon, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 05:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16381961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissoffools/pseuds/kissoffools
Summary: “There’s something special about Halloween in New York, and I want to experience it.”Two months into his new college life in New York City, Ryan Evans goes to a Halloween party.





	Zorro

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonster/gifts).



If there’s one thing Ryan loves, it’s Halloween.

Well, and jazz squares. And ascots. And fresh sheet music just waiting to be filled with pencil scribbles and music direction. 

But, you know. Halloween is right up there. 

So he never says no to a costume party. And apparently his classmates at Julliard feel the same way. 

“Get your ass out here, Nielsen!” Ryan calls, leaning against the door to the apartment he and Kelsi have shared since arriving in New York a couple months ago. It’s in Queens and on the second floor, with crooked floorboards and windows that have never seen a bucket of sudsy water. When Sharpay came to help them move in, she took one look around and asked where was the staircase to the second floor. It certainly isn’t glamorous, but for Ryan, it represents a new start. A new life, where he doesn’t have to be scared to be himself. 

And currently, it’s a place he’d very much like to leave, if Kelsi would finish with her costume and get the hell out the door. 

“Come _on_!” he calls again, the neurotic edge to his voice rising. “The party started an hour ago and this is far past the point that I’m comfortable calling ‘fashionably late’!”

“ _Okay!_ Jeez, you’d think you’d have turned red and popped by now!” Kelsi comes bustling out into the hallway, tugging at a sparkly glove on her right hand. “It’s too small. This is what I get for buying a kid’s glove and making this costume myself.”

“Nonsense, you look fantastic,” Ryan says, barely giving her Michael Jackson getup a glance. “Now let’s _go._ ”

Kelsi tosses a black jacket over her shoulder and rolls her eyes. “Do you have a date that I don’t know about, or something? What is your deal tonight?” 

“You say that like I’m not always extra.” 

“Well.” Kelsi pauses, and then shrugs. “Still. It’s over the top, even for you.” 

“I’ve just got a good feeling about tonight,” Ryan says, throwing open the front door and ushering Kelsi out into the hallway. Now that they’ve got momentum, he doesn’t want to waste it. “There’s something special about Halloween in New York, and I want to experience it.” 

***

Two hours later, Ryan thinks he may have to rescind that sentiment.

Apparently, Halloween at a Julliard party is exactly the same as Halloween at a party back home in Albuquerque. The same cheap booze, the same orange lights strung up haphazardly, the same overplayed pop music making it too loud to talk. The dancing is mildly better than it was back home, given the amount of trained people in this room, but evidently, even the best dancers are knocked down a peg or two after six shots of tequila. 

“ _This_ is your magical New York Halloween?” Kelsi asks him, minutes before being pulled into a still-ongoing debate about the merits of songwriters as celebrities with a cute girl a year above them. From his spot perched on the arm of a stained couch, watching her and the girl dressed as Liberace banter playfully, Ryan sighs. 

The whole point of moving to New York was to finally start to be himself. But now, surrounded by people who are far more like him than anyone back home, he feels exactly as he always has.

Lonely. 

The problem with costume parties, he’s never really realized before, is how hard it is to tell who’s behind the makeup and wigs and masks. Back home, it hadn’t mattered so much - he had known everyone since kindergarten, and it was much easier to figure out who was under the Lady Gaga wig or the monster mask. But here, around people he’s only known for two months? It feels like a room full of strangers.

Which, he’s beginning to think, it really is. 

And that thought could propel any guy towards the keg. 

The spread is decent, for a college party - a few bottles of hard liquor and some half-empty mixers littered across a table, the keg at one end next to a stack of cups. Bowls that at one point presumably held chips and popcorn, judging by the debris littered on the ground. Ryan pokes a little at the mixers before settling on beer, trying not to wrinkle his nose at the taste as he downs it all in one go. 

“Hey,” comes a voice behind his ear.

Surprised, trying not to jump and look like an idiot, Ryan turns. It only takes a moment for his eyes to dip up and down the frame of the guy in front of him for him to decide that this party may have just taken a turn. 

“Hi,” Ryan says. He gestures to the costume the other man is wearing, disappointed that he can’t see the guy’s full face. “Zorro, huh?” 

“Yeah. I thought it’d be a cool throwback.” The guy shrugs, and Ryan has to lean in a little bit to hear him better. The loud music is starting to give him a headache - though that could also be the booze. “What are you, some kind of weird, discount Zorro?”

The surprised laugh leaves Ryan’s mouth before he can stop himself. “I’m Westley. From _The Princess Bride_ ,” he says, unable to truly fathom that anyone wouldn’t get the reference. When the other guy blinks at him, saying nothing, Ryan lifts his arms in dismay. “Oh, man,” he says, looking down at himself. “Is it not clear? I haven’t seen the movie in awhile. Maybe the shirt isn’t right…”

“Dude, chill,” the guy says with a laugh, and the hand he places on Ryan’s shoulder sends an involuntary shiver through him. _Well._ “I’ve never seen it. I’m sure you’re an excellent Wellesley.”

“Westley,” Ryan says hopelessly, and then shakes his head. “You’re missing out. It’s really good.” 

“Maybe I’ll have to check it out.” The guy grins, and Ryan feels his stomach swoop. Who is this guy and why can’t Ryan remember him from any of his classes? 

“You should.”

“So, you go to Julliard?” the guy asks. Ryan nods, and the guy takes a sip of his drink. “I’m just here visiting my cousin for a couple weeks. He’s around here somewhere.” 

Only a couple of weeks, Ryan’s ears note. Damn. “Having fun?” he asks the guy, leaning in a little closer to be heard. Sure. To be heard.

“I am now.” 

The way the corners of his mouth turn up makes Ryan dizzy. Or that could be the beer, but he doesn’t think so. 

Ryan’s about to open his mouth and ask the guy something else - maybe _where do you go to school?_ or _do you like Andrew Lloyd-Webber?_ or _what’s your name?_ \- but before he can, another guy comes up and smacks his mystery guy on the shoulder. He leans in to say something Ryan can’t hear, and he’s struck for just a second that this might be what it feels like when someone moves in on your man. Not that Mystery Guy is _his_ man, but still. He isn’t interested in losing him to some guy in a basketball jersey. Which is a terrible costume, he can’t help but note. 

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Mystery Guy says, leaning in and placing his hand on Ryan’s forearm. “My cousin needs to jet, and I’m crashing on his couch.”

“Oh,” Ryan says, his stomach sinking a little. Not losing Mystery Guy to Basketball Guy: good. Mystery Guy having to leave: bad. “Okay.” 

“Well, hey,” the guy adds, digging a hand into his pants pocket and pulling out a scrap of receipt paper. He taps his cousin and the cousin produces a pen, and Mystery Guy takes a moment to scrawl something on the back of the paper. Then, he hands it to Ryan. “Here.” 

In his hand is a piece of paper with ten digits. 

A phone number.

Mystery Guy gets in real close, lips practically brushing his ear. His hand squeezes Ryan’s arm. “Call me. You can show me your costume’s inspiration. I’m always up for a good movie.” 

And then he’s gone, and Ryan’s lost his breath.

“ _Dude,_ ” Kelsi’s voice hisses at his elbow. “What was _that_?!” 

“What?” Ryan asks, unable to take his eyes off the guy as he disappears out the apartment door. A sharp jab hits his side, and he buckles a little. “Ow! Kelsi, what the hell was that?”

“What the hell was _that_?!” she repeats, jerking her head towards the door. 

“He gave me his number,” Ryan says, a grin splitting across his face. “He said I should call him so we can watch _The Princess Bride_ together. Can you believe it? How has anybody not seen _The Princess Bride_?” 

“Uh, I wouldn’t think that movie was really up Chad Danforth’s alley.” 

Ryan freezes. “What?” 

She blinks up at him. “What ‘what’? What were you doing, flirting with Chad Danforth?” 

“Chad,” Ryan repeats, as if his brain needs a moment to catch up with the information it’s trying to process. “Chad Danforth.” 

“Are you broken, or something?” Kelsi asks, looking at him with concern. “I get talking to Marnie for like five minutes, and then I turn around and you and Chad are all up on each other! What the hell was that?” 

“How do you know that was Chad?” His voice is hoarse, a little stunned. 

“Because I actually pay attention to the people we spent, like, twelve years going to school with? Wait -” Kelsi leans forward. “Did you _not know_ you were flirting with Chad?” 

“He was dressed as Zorro. He doesn’t even live in New York,” Ryan says weakly, his brain furiously zipping over every single thing they said to each other. “He looked so cute…” 

She bumps her shoulder against his arm with a little smile. “He clearly thought you were cute too,” she says, nodding towards the number in his hand. “Are you going to call him?” 

The sound of his voice, quiet against Ryan’s ear. His hand, warm on his shoulder. Warm brown eyes and a smile that made Ryan’s stomach flip over. How had he not realized?

Had _Chad_ realized? 

Ryan shakes his head “I don’t think he even knew it was me,” he says. His voice is small. Embarrassed, somehow.

Kelsi wraps her hand around Ryan’s, squeezing it shut tight. Keeping that piece of paper, with its chicken-scratch handwriting, held tight. “You’ll never know until you call.” 

Ryan sighs, conflicted. “I guess.”

“You don’t have to decide right now,” Kelsi tells him. “Just keep it til the morning. See how you feel then. Okay?” 

“God, I need another drink.” 

Ryan keeps that little piece of paper tucked into his hand for the rest of the party. He holds it through a game of beer pong, some drunk dancing, and a stumble home that includes a stop at the bodega on the corner for much-needed bags of potato chips. Before he tumbles into bed, he tucks it under the edge of his alarm clock for safekeeping. 

When he wakes up, the little paper is staring at him. Taunting him. 

At first he thinks he’ll let it be. It was one stupid party, and maybe five minutes of conversation. Maybe it wasn’t even flirting. Hell, maybe it wasn’t even Chad! Maybe none of it matters and he’ll go back to class on Monday and it will all just be a forgotten memory, and he’ll continue smiling at the boys he passes in the hallway and wondering if any of them ever think about him the second he passes their field of vision. 

He can’t get those brown eyes out of his mind. 

Two Tylenols and several glasses of water later, he gets up the courage to call. His heart is in his throat with every ring. 

“Hello?” 

He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath. He exhales before he loses his nerve. “Hi. Chad?” 

“Ryan.” He can hear a smile straight through the phone line, and warmth spreads through his chest. “I thought that was you.” 

And Ryan’s already online, looking up the hours of the video store down the block. He’s got a movie to rent.

 

_end._

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween, Bonster! It was fun to play around with a little holiday-themed Ryan and Chad for you. :)


End file.
